TITLE:
Woody Species Diversity and Diameter Structure of Sacred Forests in the Collines Department, Central Benin (West Africa)
AUTHORS:
Kpogniwé Zouvèwou Joël, Assongba Yédjanlognon Faustin, Tobada Pléchakov, Gaudence Julien M. Djego
KEYWORDS:
Sacred Forests, Floristic Diversity, Weibull Distribution, Phanerophytes, IndVal, West Africa, Benin
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.17 No.11,
November
3,
2026
ABSTRACT: Sacred forests constitute important reservoirs of woody biodiversity in West Africa, yet their floristic composition and structural characteristics across contrasting vegetation types remain poorly documented in central Benin. This study assessed the diversity and diameter structure of woody species in 28 sacred forests distributed across three communes (Glazoué, Savalou, Dassa-Zoumé) of the Collines Department, covering three forest types: woodland (FC), dry dense forest (FDS), and gallery forest (GF). Floristic inventories were conducted in 56 plots of 30 m × 30 m (19 FC, 34 FDS, 3 GF) using Braun-Blanquet phytosociological methods, recording all woody individuals with diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 10 cm. Diversity indices (Shannon H′, Simpson D, Pielou evenness, Margalef, Chao1 estimator) were computed per plot and compared across formations using Kruskal-Wallis tests with the plot as the analytical unit. Diameter distributions were fitted to the Weibull model. A total of 58 woody species were recorded. Mean species richness was 15.95 ± 2.03 spp./plot in FC and 15.71 ± 1.77 in FDS, and 8.33 ± 0.88 in GF; no significant differences among formations were detected for any diversity index (p > 0.05), but this result is imprecise because GF is represented by only three plots. Biological spectra were exclusively dominated by phanerophytes (100%), which is expected given that only stems with DBH ≥ 10 cm were recorded. All formations showed unimodal, right-skewed diameter distributions dominated by stems of 10 - 30 cm DBH (72% - 85% of stems). Indicator species analysis (IndVal) identified four significant species: Pterocarpus erinaceus and Vitellaria paradoxa for FDS, Khaya senegalensis for FC, and Diospyros mespiliformis for GF. These results are consistent with sacred forests acting as refuges for woody biodiversity and support the integration of traditional conservation mechanisms into formal forest management frameworks.